


When You Catch a Werewolf on Camera

by story_monger



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3303596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/story_monger/pseuds/story_monger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is strange. One minute you're on a perfectly regular assignment for work, the next you're dealing with a short, blond werewolf who is alternatively threatening and endearing. That's not even mentioning the strange deaths that might present more of a danger than either you or said werewolf can properly handle. And here Cassie thought she'd left the supernatural weirdness behind with the Winchesters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Catch a Werewolf on Camera

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thanks to Ashley for creating the wonderful art that inspired this story! I was so excited to see a fem rarepair. Go to her [art post](http://musingsofashley.tumblr.com/post/110297116637/art-prompt-s1078-pairing-kate-cassie-robinson-i) to leave her comments.
> 
> And thank you to [darcydelaney](http://darcydelaney.livejournal.com/) for her second betaing job. You're the best!

“You’re shitting me.”

“Naw, naw, I’m serious.”

Cassie flicked on the camera and made a small _hmph_ when she found an empty battery.

“Do we seriously have bears around here, though?”

“The ranger thought it was a drifter, but I guess so.”

“Nick,” Cassie cut in. “Do we have any charged camera batteries?”

Nick, a bespectacled man whom Cassie could only ever mentally describe as “saggy” looked up. He leaned against the desk, his arms crossed. Jason, leaning against the opposite desk, twisted around as well. Jason was not saggy. Jason was the opposite of saggy in ways that Cassie, as a red-blooded woman, could appreciate in full.

“Batteries?” Nick echoed. “Second drawer down; should be something.”

“What assignment are you doing?” Jason asked as Cassie ducked down to open the assigned drawer.

“Uh, deer,” Cassie answered. She shifted aside a pile of rubber bands to find the promised battery and straightened with it in hand. “That story about the chronic wasting disease,” she added. “I was asked to get some visuals.”

“Hey, if you’re headed into the woods, maybe you should have someone with you,” Jason leaned forward, and when Cassie lifted her eyes slightly she found his expression to be all open courtesy.

In addition to his non-sagginess, warm brown eyes, and perpetual light scruff, Jason seemed to be a genuinely good-natured person. They had fun chatting by the printers and Jason always knew to some degree which stories Cassie was working on. He liked to ask her about them, giving her a much-needed chance to vent about sources being stubborn or editors being mulish.

Any one of Cassie’s friends would have told her to get on that pronto, that Adrian was a whole year ago and she _must_ be ready to move on by now. Except Cassie let days drag into weeks and she found that for all of Jason’s charming courtesies and well-toned shoulders, she just. She didn’t. She didn’t feel any _oomph_ for it.

“Why should I have someone with me? ‘Cause of this bear?” Cassie asked and dropped her eyes again, popping the fresh battery into the camera and closing the lid with a small snap. She could feel Jason retreat.

“ _If_ it’s a bear,” Jason said, looking to Nick again.

“What else is big enough to drag horses around?” Nick asked, all old-man surety.

“Cougar?”

“Nah, boy, cougars don’t tear apart their prey like that.”

“Well,” Cassie looped the camera over her shoulder and smiled fleetingly at the two men. “So far this thing has been going after livestock, so I’m not overly worried, but I’ll bring my old field hockey stick just in case.”

Both of them looked skeptical as Cassie slid past them and across the newsroom.

***

Cassie honestly didn’t plan to go into the woods at all. She knew of a wide pasture near her apartment where deer liked to graze in the evenings, and she’d had every intention of setting up shop there to get her shots. She’d heard plenty of details about the livestock found in fields and in peoples’ yards; she had no need to get involved in _that_ gore fest.

It was only that Cassie needed these shots by tomorrow morning, and it was just her luck that the deer refused to show up in the pasture. Once the sun started to sink in earnest, Cassie gritted her teeth, gathered her supplies, and plowed across the field and into the woods. Just a few steps in, she told herself. Just to see whether she could find anything promising.

The trees cast long shadows across the leaf litter as Cassie slogged through drifts of leaves, camera bouncing against her midsection. It took five minutes of venturing for Cassie to resign herself to turning back and explaining to her editor that the deer hadn’t been cooperative that evening.

She heard the rustle of leaves somewhere to her right.

A massive honeysuckle—bane of park rangers everywhere—blocked her view, but Cassie managed to edge past it and peer into a shadowed clearing. The sun had set enough for Cassie to register “low moving shape” and immediately convert that to “grazing deer,” which made her lift her camera to her eye. The thing would undoubtedly bounce away within a few seconds, and she wanted to go home.

Gazing through the lens though, right before she snapped the shutter release, Cassie had a sudden realization that deer were not quite that shape and they did not sport blond hair.

Cassie lowered her camera, squinted, and then cursed. Loudly.

The girl whipped her head up and for one agonizing second, Cassie’s world came into hyper focus. She saw the blood smeared all over the girl’s lower face (a generous portion of her upper face, too). Cassie saw the deer carcass split open between the girl’s hands, which were braced against the ground. She saw the ribs sticking into the air and the stunned expression on the girl’s face that slid into something harder.

Some part of Cassie’s brain that remembered that humans had once been prey screamed at her now to turn around and sprint, to not look back, that she should have brought the field hockey stick after all because a human-shaped thing that ate raw deer was probably not, in fact, human.

Cassie ran. She burst from the forest line and heaved in a breath to propel her the last few hundred yards to her car. She fumbled with the handle for a few heart-stopping seconds then yanked the door open and dove inside. She slammed the car door shut so hard that her arm rattled.

Technically speaking, the next step would have been to turn on the engine and peel out of that place, but the part of Cassie that was always and forever too curious for her own good made her pause and peer out the window.

Dusk had settled properly, so for all Cassie knew, the bloody girl stood just inside the forest watching her, which followed most of the horror movie plots Cassie had seen in her day. But as far as Cassie could tell, the pasture stood peaceful and undisturbed by any…whatever Cassie had just witnessed.

With a sudden flinch, Cassie stuck the key into the ignition and proceeded with the peeling away plan.

She kept her eyes on the road, her grip on the steering wheel tight, and her focus on getting home. Ten minutes later, she parked in her usual spot and hustled to the apartment door. Cassie had to glance behind her as she jammed the keys into the lock and swung the door open. Nothing behind her, but that didn’t mean safety. Cassie dead bolted the door and let her forehead rest against the peeling surface. She wondered suddenly if she ought to salt the doorway. She remembered that much.

“God,” Cassie uttered out loud, then moved to her couch. She sat down and pulled the camera from her bag, examining it before she called up the photo. And yes. Hard, clear evidence if Cassie needed it. A girl caught in the camera’s flash, face bloodied, mouth partially open to reveal too-sharp teeth. Cassie wondered if, despite the girl’s slim body, she’d be strong enough to drag horses across fields and tear them into shreds. Maybe. Her eyes shone orb-like, reflecting light in the way of animal eyes, not human eyes. Cassie bit her lip and lowered the camera into her lap.

Cassie still had the phone number. She’d copied it down in her tattered phone book years ago, and she knew she could go to her bedroom and pull it out and at least get his voicemail. Maybe he’d be close enough to come help, but maybe not. Maybe he’d changed his phone number again and she’d be left with a dead line. Maybe _he_ was dead. He and his brother did dangerous work, and she had no way of knowing.

“Jesus,” Cassie muttered, tossing the camera onto the couch beside her and standing. “I don’t need this again.” One supernatural event in her life had been enough, thanks.

Someone had once told Cassie that sleep was like the humans’ reset button, the did-you-turn-it-off-and-back-on-again for the brain. So even though it was still early evening, Cassie almost aggressively changed into her oldest, rattiest pajamas, double checked that everything was locked, and then fell into her bed so she wouldn’t have to think about this for another few hours.

***

The night passed peacefully and the next day, Cassie got through a whole hour of her morning routing without thinking too hard about the events of the night before. She was proud of herself when she looped her purse over her shoulder and opened her apartment door.

It was early fall, and the sun had only barely hauled itself over the tops of the surrounding apartment buildings. It cast a soft, orange glow on the parking lot and the lines of cars fogged with dew. Cassie sighed out a plume of vapor and made her way to the car. When she slid into the seat and started the engine, she could have sworn she saw a flash of movement across the parking lot. But when she turned to look properly, the lot was empty.

Any other day, Cassie would have been able to dismiss it.

***

Cassie went through work in a fog that morning. She explained to her editor, Sharon, that she hadn’t gotten any photos and hardly registered Sharon’s pursed lips. She barely heard Nick ask her if she’d seen any bears in the woods, responded sluggishly to Jason’s conversation, and overall made herself about as engaging as a sea sponge. The only clear thing in her mind was the SD card that she’d popped from the camera after returning it to Nick. It sat in her pocket and burned a tiny square into her thigh.

Really, Cassie thought, she ought to delete the picture and forget it had ever happened. But the idea of leaving only her own memory as documentation of what she’d seen felt dangerous somehow. She could hide the SD card, couldn’t she? Stick it in the back corner of her closet and at least it would be there when she needed it.

Cassie had settled on this idea by the time she drove home that afternoon, was starting to envision good places for hiding a small piece of plastic. She was so caught up in these ideas that it took her several seconds after she entered the apartment to recognize that something was wrong.

Cassie stood stock still in the doorway, eyes widening as she stared at the living room. It wasn’t trashed, per say. But no doubt someone had tossed aside cushions and rifled through drawers, shifted couches and pulled apart cabinets. Cassie darted into her bedroom and found her laptop and TV still in place, and those were undoubtedly the most valuable things here. Not a robbery then. Someone had been looking for something.

 _She_ had been looking for something.

Cassie exhaled hard because this meant the monster was intelligent enough to pick a lock and search for a camera. This was not good, and this was the point at which Cassie needed to call Dean and his brother.

***

Ten minutes later, Cassie swore a blue streak into the phone when it told her yet again that the number she’d dialed did not exist. Typical of him, really. _Typical_.

***

Cassie would have been lying if she claimed to sleep well that night, if at all. Rather, she spent way too long trying to get her apartment back in order, then wasted several hours Googling things like “human eating raw deer” and “human with fangs.” She got a lot of stories about vampires and those people in Florida who did unbelievable things while high on frightening new drugs.

The rest of the night, Cassie slept in snatches with one hand on her old field hockey stick.

***

Cassie woke up feeling groggy and pissed and officially sick of being scared. As she left for work, Cassie trudged down the sidewalk feeling like she was liable to smack anyone who looked at her wrong.

The blond girl sitting on the curb in front of Cassie’s car turned around just then. Cassie froze.

She processed short blond hair, dark eyes, a worn jacket, thin t-shirt, ripped jeans, and thought automatically, _She’s way too underdressed to be traipsing around the woods._ Then Cassie recalled the part where this girl had been eating a raw deer carcass, and the survival instinct nudged at her to do an about face and get back into the apartment.

Except Cassie didn’t do that. She remained rooted to the spot, and maybe it was the girl’s clothes or maybe Cassie recognized that if this girl wanted to kill her, she’d have done it by now, or like mentioned before, Cassie was sick and tired of feeling hunted.

Whatever it was, it let Cassie grip at the strap of her purse, straighten her back, and say, “What do you want?” in a no-nonsense tone. Asking to get killed, her mother would have scolded her. Fearless, her father might have said proudly. More than a bit reckless, they would probably both have admitted.

The blond girl tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. Cassie wondered what the girl was thinking. (She really, really hoped it wasn’t anything like, “Oh look, prey that stands still. How thoughtful.”)

The girl stood slowly, her eyes fixed on Cassie. She took a few steps forward, and Cassie did not stumble backward, thank god, but she did flinch slightly. The girl paused.

“So,” the girl said in a casual, subtly flippant tone. Cassie waited a moment for her to continue.

“So…” Cassie echoed. The girl took another few steps forward, and Cassie was ready this time. Not even a flinch. Though she did take note of the barest curl of the girl’s lip, like she was ready to flash some chompers at a moment’s notice. The girl was trying to _intimidate_ her, Cassie realized. Immediately after that, Cassie realized another thing. The girl had no idea how much Cassie had seen, whether she’d believed her own eyes, whether she even had the photo with her. She was stalling and posing and hoping Cassie would give the game away.

Cassie nearly laughed at that point, if only out of sheer nerves.

 _She’s just another news source who doesn’t want to give herself away,_ Cassie told herself. _Just treat her like any other PR lady who’s trying to figure out how much of the scandal you know._ She’s _scared of_ you, _Cassie._

Though, unlike the nastiest of PR representatives, this girl could probably rip Cassie’s throat out and not feel bad about it. She shoved that thought down for now.

Instead, Cassie folded her arms. “Look, if you need something, can you just tell me?” she asked. “I need to get to work.”

The girl blinked. It only lasted a second, but Cassie saw the mask falter. The girl subtly shifted her stance into something lower to the ground.

“You have something I need,” she said.

“You sure as hell think so,” Cassie snapped back. “You broke into my apartment, didn’t you?” The girl blinked again. Cassie bulled forward. “I spent all last night cleaning up, and now you’re threatening me. You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

Then, in a great show of bravado, Cassie started toward her car again, passing right by the girl. The girl, to her credit, didn’t lose patience and bring out her fangs. Cassie might not have entirely blamed her for that. Instead, the girl stared at Cassie as she unlocked the car, slid inside, and started the engine. She was still staring when Cassie drove away, barely letting herself breathe.

***

Cassie spent a second day being useless at work. She was sluggish at her meeting with her editor and failed to laugh at most of Jason’s jokes when they had their customary ‘wander over to the other person’s desk’ session around mid-morning. (Perhaps he did the casual wandering over more often than Cassie, but really, who was keeping track? Hint: Cassie was.)

“You feeling okay?” Jason went so far to ask. Cassie blinked at him.

“Fine,” she croaked. “Weird night.”

“Yeah, that latest bear attack can’t have helped,” Jason leaned on her desk.

“Latest…what did it do?” Cassie lifted her head.

“Whole cow split open in one of the suburban neighborhoods. Little kids finding it on their ways to the bus stop. That crosses the line from weird to sinister, don’t you think?”

“Wow. Yeah,” Cassie admitted. Her heart picked up pace.

“Honestly, I still don’t think this is a bear,” Jason continued darkly. “I mean, aren’t bears more like scavengers than this? They wouldn’t be going to the bother of killing all these cows and horses and whatnot. They’d be raiding our trash bins.”

“Hmm,” Cassie hummed distractedly.

“Don’t you think so?” Jason asked.

“Sure, it’s creepy,” Cassie allowed. She squinted studiously at her screen. She never trusted herself when it came to lying, and she just bet that her face shone with an expression that read “I know what’s doing this, it’s a monster girl with inadequate clothing and a tendency to pick locks and raid apartments! Ask me more!”

“Ah, sorry,” Jason half laughed. “You’re probably sick of talking about it.”

“A little,” Cassie admitted. “Honestly, you see one gruesome picture, you’ve seen them all.”

He laughed again. Jason had a nice laugh; rich and deep. In a vague way, Cassie recognized that usually, a laugh like that would shoot straight to her nether regions. Only it didn’t. Which didn’t have to mean anything at all, it was just a problem considering Jason’s next words.

“So, listen,” he said. “I was wondering if you were busy tomorrow night.” Cassie looked up at him properly. Tomorrow was a Friday. She didn’t think he was about to ask her for a helping hand with one of his stories.

“You asking me out?” she asked, because she apparently didn’t have the ability to be coy today.

“I…” Jason rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m asking you out,” he admitted. “That work for you?”

Cassie _did_ like Jason. He was tight in all the right places, his voice was melted chocolate, he knew how to laugh, he listened to her like he genuinely was interested in what she had to say. He was as safe as a house, as far as boyfriend material was concerned, and after the shit storm that had been Adrian, Cassie needed something like that. Supposedly. That’s what everyone told her, at least.

 _Just need to dive in again,_ Cassie told herself firmly. So she smiled and said, “Sure.”

***

Any thoughts of Jason took a back seat when the girl showed up during Cassie’s lunch break later that day. Cassie should probably have predicted it.

She had just picked up her sandwich at the local Panera when she turned around and nearly squeaked. (To her credit, she held it in at the last minute.) The girl stood way too close for comfort, her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets and her gaze sharp. She was _short_ , Cassie realized abruptly.

“We need to talk,” the girl said.

Cassie looked around at the crowded café.

“Here?” she asked.

“Sorry, did you prefer a dark alleyway?” the girl asked flatly. “I can do that too.”

“Mouthy,” Cassie muttered, and switched her paper bag to the opposite hand. She walked toward a small, empty table right in the middle of the café. The girl followed silently.

Determined to keep up the air of nonchalance, Cassie pulled out her sandwich and unwrapped it slowly. The girl had slid into the seat across from Cassie and was now looking around the Panera. Cassie took a bite of her sandwich and tried to watch the girl surreptitiously. She didn’t act like the thing Cassie had seen in the woods, and that bothered Cassie more than anything else. A monster, she figured, should have the decency to make itself clear at all times.

Then, deciding that she had nothing to lose, Cassie set down her sandwich and asked, “So what _are_ you?”

Cassie liked the reaction she got. The girl whipped her head over to Cassie with wide eyes and flared nostrils. She was caught off guard, which suited Cassie just fine.

“What do you mean?” the girl asked.

“I mean, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’re folks out there who can take down a deer and then eat it raw, but then again, those chompers weren’t anything human.” Cassie leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “So what are you?”

The girl’s eyes narrowed suddenly.

“You’re a hunter,” she hissed. At that moment, Cassie caught a glimpse of red in the girl’s eyes, a shifting of her jawline and a different hunch in her shoulders. It took iron willpower not to leap back and shout a warning for everyone to get the hell out of there.

“No,” Cassie said instead, her voice low. “I’m not. But I am aware. I know there are things like you out there.”

The girl took two more breaths that were too deep and ragged. Then she retreated back into her chair.

“I don’t have to tell you a damn thing,” the girl said.

“Good, then I don’t have to tell you where that picture is. Or whether there was a picture at all.”

The girl scowled. “I saw a flash,” she said.

“And maybe you imagined it. Maybe I’ve already deleted the picture, if it exists. You have no idea. And if you kill me, you still won’t know whether I’ve given it to someone, posted it somewhere, anything like that.” Cassie picked up her sandwich and took another bite. The girl looked like she was ready to smack something now. It was preferable to looking like she wanted to rip someone’s throat out.

“Why are you acting like this?” the girl asked in a guttural voice. “I just want the fucking picture, and then I’ll leave. I swear, this does not need to be this difficult.”

“For one, you broke into my apartment and left a mess and that pissed me off,” Cassie said. “Two, you’re clearly something supernatural that could kill me without thinking about it, so sorry for not entirely trusting what you say.”

“Good lord,” the girl groaned. “I’m not intent on killing anyone, okay? That’s the _last_ thing on my list.”

Her voice wavered slightly, and that gave Cassie a funny little jerk in the pit of her stomach. She stared across the table at the girl. The girl stared back. And Cassie got the strongest sense of not sitting across from a monster, but from an angry, lost teenager. She hadn’t been prepared for that, and it made her look down at her sandwich.

“Okay, listen,” Cassie said. “How about I promise that no one will ever see that photo? No exposés, no tabloid releases, not Internet forums.” A pause. “If it exists,” Cassie tacked on tardily.

The girl smiled suddenly. It was a crooked thing.

“It exists,” she said. “I can hear your heart beating really hard. And I _saw_ a flash.”

Traitorous organ, that heart. Cassie huffed and picked at the crust of her sandwich.

“You swear?” the girl asked after a moment.

“Pinky promise,” Cassie said. The girl snorted.

“That the best I’m going to get out of you? Your word?” she asked.

“It’s as good as your word that you’re not going to eat me while I’m sleeping tonight,” Cassie replied.

The girl’s expression shuttered, and she dropped her eyes to the table. Then she abruptly stood and held out a hand.

“That’s a deal,” she said. Cassie looked up for a long moment then accepted the hand. She worked not to wince; the girl had an iron grip. The girl nodded once then turned around and made for the door. She disappeared amid a group of local college students and was gone.

***

Chapter 2

 

Cassie hadn’t been on a proper date in well over three years, so she might have fussed with her appearance more thoroughly than usual the next night. She changed her dress three times and ended up with the same outfit she’d initially chosen. Then she wandered around her apartment and absentmindedly tidied things up even though she’d already cleaned the place the night before.

She was putting away the many shoes she’d extracted when, at the back of the closet, she spotted the battered box that held a pair of dirty old gym shoes and, hidden under the left shoe’s sole, an SD card. Cassie stared at the shoebox and got a sudden urge to pull the SD card out and look at the picture again. Except that was creepy and Jason would be here any second.

Cassie shoved the rest of the shoes into the closet and nearly slammed the closet door shut.

Jason, when he arrived, looked appropriately dashing and adorable in his button-down and slacks. His brown hair had been mussed just enough to be appealing, not too much to look sloppy. He made the right comments on how pleasant her apartment was then escorted her to a nice but not ostentatious car waiting in the parking lot. They drove to one of the better restaurants in town. They talked about movies and their coworkers and sports teams. They drank wine. They laughed. They smiled a lot.

The whole time, Cassie’s mind felt a million miles away.

She still agreed to a second date.

***

Over the next few weeks, Cassie buried herself in writing about road closings and thefts and the latest government sex scandal. She threw herself into letting Jason woo her with nice dinners and sparkling conversation. It was predictable and she needed that right now. Not that she didn’t keep an eye out for short, waifish blondes with fangs, but the girl seemed to have decided to trust Cassie and to stop bothering her. That, or she was good at not being seen.

The incidents of livestock remains being found in someone’s yard, meanwhile, persisted. Increased, in fact, and Cassie started thinking things like, _She’d better tone it down; people are getting properly angry about this._ Word started going around about a task force of some type, something that would finally hunt down this supposed bear.

Features editor Olivia Jenkins, she of the iconic red and manicured nails, started insisting that the number of missing dogs and cats had crept up recently, and that their bodies were being found in the same manner as the livestock: scattered and bloody. This, somehow, felt more sobering. Cows and goats and horses were one thing; they were prey animals. But dogs and cats resided closer to houses. Closer to people.

***

Over a month after their initial date, Cassie could tell that Jason was starting to get confused. She understood. Standard procedure stated that they have sex by now; it had been well past the third date and their rapport certainly hadn’t gone south. They still had things to talk about; Jason was as nice and well toned as ever.

But it felt like Cassie’s mind had been caught on some great ocean tide that carried her farther and farther out to sea despite her efforts to swim toward shore. She just couldn’t _concentrate_ on the relationship. Jason felt downright theoretical sometimes, like he could have been replaced by another similarly handsome face and Cassie probably wouldn’t notice for a few days. It wasn’t fair to him, and Cassie knew that she needed to break things off now while they were still relatively unofficial.

Except then Saturday night happened.

They’d been spending the last several hours at a bar, and near the end, Jason had switched from beer over to hard liquor. Cassie had declined to join him. The hangovers from liquor generally weren’t worth it.

So when they left the bar, Cassie was merely fuzzy while Jason was out and out drunk. Cassie asked for the keys to Jason’s car so she could drive, but to her surprise, he insisted that he was fine.

“You’re not,” Cassie argued, this close to just grabbing the keys. “Jason, don’t be an idiot.”

Jason gave her a scowl then slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Cassie hovered on the sidewalk for a moment then remembered how long a walk it was back to her apartment. She slid into the passenger seat. She was too tired and muzzy to argue this properly.

To his credit, Jason was an accomplished drunk driver. He didn’t speed badly, and he only ran one red light. Cassie had seen worse.

Then he started taking the wrong roads, and Cassie realized that he was driving them to his house, not her apartment. Maybe he’d forgotten that she’d asked to go right home after the bar, which was…well, Cassie would probably borrow his car tonight to get home, then drive back tomorrow so he could drive _her_ home and—

Cassie’s line of thought was cut off when Jason parked them jerkily in his driveway. He stared at the dashboard for a moment then looked over and asked, “You comin’ in?”

Cassie stared at him.

“Do you need help?” she hedged.

His smile was crooked.

“Yeah,” he said.

Cassie wasn’t stupid, but she also felt bad for the guy, so she agreed to assist him into his house. The house was about as standard as Jason himself, with practical furniture and minimal but tasteful decoration. She stood near the front door while Jason made an unsteady line down the hall to what looked like a kitchen.

“C’mon,” he called back, and Cassie went.

She found Jason pouring two shot glasses of Jack Daniel’s.

“I need to drive still,” she said when he offered one of the shot glasses. “Thanks, though.”

“Hon,” he said. (He never called her hon.) “Do you really?”

Cassie twisted her fingers into one another and wondered, desperately, when she’d become so pliable. She’d not have acted like this three years earlier. Maybe Adrian had done that big of a number on her. Abruptly, Cassie wanted nothing more than to be at home wrapped in her rattiest sweater and watching reruns of M*A*S*H. Her skirt and tight shirt felt unbearable against her skin.

Jason, meanwhile, crossed the kitchen. He smiled, but it looked off somehow. Cassie felt paranoid thinking she saw a glint of something harder in it. He touched at the side of her neck (his breath smelled like whisky) then moved to kiss it. Cassie stepped back.

The kitchen rang dead silent. Jason smiled again.

“Listen, ‘m I doin’ som’thin’ wrong?” he slurred. “S’rs’ly, am I?”

“No,” Cassie admitted, because he wasn’t, generally speaking. “I’m just not…” she cleared her throat. “I’m not really. Interested. Right now.”

Jason squinted. Then, astonishingly fast for his blood alcohol content, he grabbed at her face and pulled her in for a kiss. He was a very decent kisser under normal circumstances, but now he was all teeth and insistent tongue and his grip on Cassie’s face _hurt_ , so she did the only practical thing and shoved at him. It wasn’t quite enough to disengage him, so she grabbed at his hands and ripped them off of her. She turned and, without bothering to look back, all but stumbled down the hall and out the door.

He didn’t shout and he didn’t try to follow her, but Cassie still jogged down the sidewalk in blessedly practical shoes that let her keep up a good pace. She kept her grip on her purse iron tight and her eyes wide so they wouldn’t start tearing up.

She had to slow when she reached the end of the road because the sidewalk ended. She knew the way home; it wasn’t far way. But in between sat a lot of curved, forested roads sans sidewalks and she wore a thin jacket and nice clothes.

Cassie huffed and started walking again. Nothing to do, her father used to say, but to do it.

***

She’d been walking for fifteen minutes and only been passed by three cars when a voice drifted to her. Cassie flinched before she registered it as a female voice. Cassie looked ahead of her and saw a short, blond figure barely lit up by the waxing moon.

“Hey!” the girl called again. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah!” Cassie called back as nonchalantly as she could. “Wonderful.”

“Oh.” The girl managed to punch a whole lot of disbelief in that one little “oh.”

The girl waited as Cassie trudged closer. The forest grew right to the edge of the road and didn’t leave Cassie with much room.

When Cassie drew even with the girl, she didn’t bother stopping. The girl started walking with her.

“What are you doing?” the girl insisted. “It’s, like, two in the morning.”

“Oh, really? Hadn’t noticed,” Cassie snapped. For a second, Cassie thought she might have mollified the girl into silence.

“Did your car break down?” the girl asked. “I have a cell phone.”

 _Why would a monster have a cell phone_? Cassie had to wonder.

“I do too. I just…got stranded. My car’s at home,” Cassie said.

“Oh,” the girl said. They walked in silence for a moment.

“Why are you following me?” Cassie insisted. She turned slightly and saw the girl with her hands jammed into her jacket pockets and her expression pensive.

“I’m escorting you home,” the girl said. Her face lightened a bit. Cassie was struck with the notion that this girl might be pleased to see her.

“You’re smaller than me,” Cassie said without thinking.

“And you’ve got canine teeth that barely deserve the name,” the girl replied. She shot Cassie a knowing look. “C’mon, let me make sure you don’t get molested on the way home, okay?”

“Why do you care?” Cassie insisted. “You were threatening me a month ago.”

The girl frowned suddenly, and any lightness fled her face.

“Sorry,” she said, and she sounded sincere. “I was freaking out and. Y’know. I wasn’t planning on actually hurting you, if that helps.”

“It doesn’t help,” Cassie said.

“Right.” The girl didn’t add anything else, but she didn’t slacken her pace either. Despite all this, Cassie didn’t feel inclined to shoo her away. She had a ways to go still.

“So. You have a name?” Cassie asked.

The girl glanced up.

“Wouldn’t you know it, I do,” she said. She grinned. A small thing, but unmistakable. “Shocking, huh?”

“No,” Cassie said defensively. A pause. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“What’s your name? I’ve been calling you ‘girl’ this whole time in my head.”

“I’m flattered,” the girl said, kicking at a stray pinecone. She bit her lip. “Okay, a name for a name then.”

Cassie frowned. “I feel like there’s more than one fairy tale warning me not to give my name to people like you.”

“Nah, that’s for magical old ladies and shit,” the girl promised. “Monster girls are safe in that sense.” Cassie must have looked unconvinced because the girl continued, “Here, I’ll go first.” She stuck out a hand. “Hi, my name’s Kate.”

Cassie ignored the hand and instead frowned.

“Kate,” she echoed.

“What were you expecting?”

“Dunno,” Cassie admitted. “Something…less Anglo Saxon.”

“I mean, if you really want, you can call me something more appropriate like Hearteater or Bonecruncher.”

“What?”

“Jesus Christ, I’m joking.” The girl—no—Kate peered up at Cassie. “Seriously, don’t call me Bonecruncher, we’ll get weird looks.”

“Fair enough, no Bonecrunchers,” Cassie promised. She hesitated a moment, then added, “Hi, I’m Cassie.”

Kate nodded slowly. “Y’know, I’d expect a news reporter to go by something more fear-inducing, like Cassandra.”

Cassie made a face.

“How did you know—“

“Ok, so I followed you to work once,” Kate cut in hurriedly. “I needed to…” She faltered. “Never mind. I have no defense here.”

Cassie studied the road in thought. Then she said, “I don’t know about going by Cassandra. That sounds like someone who would wear cat eye spectacles and drink martinis.”

“And serial date handsome politicians,” Kate added.

“And wear stilettos and smoke like a chimney,” Cassie continued. “My mom’d have my hide.”

Kate cracked a full, honest smile, and Cassie finally caught up with herself. One part of her brain looked askance at the other part.

_Were you just bantering with her?_

_No. Shut up. No._

_You_ were _._

Cassie cleared her throat and shifted her grip on her purse. She cast around for a different topic.

“So do you usually lurk around this road, or was I just lucky?” she asked.

 _Now_ that _just sounds like a pick up line._

 _Shut_ up.

“I try not to lurk in general,” Kate said. “It scares the locals.”

“Right,” Cassie said. “Can’t have that.”

They walked another several yards.

“No, but seriously, this is going to bother me. Have you been following me this whole time?” Cassie asked.

“No,” Kate said, and the tone sounded honest at least. “Just a little, at the beginning. After Panera I laid off. I’m a monster, not a creep.”

Cassie looked at Kate. Looked back. All guileless and dark-eyed.

“Okay.” Cassie felt her shoulders relax. “Okay, sorry, I just. It’s been a weird night and I’m feeling sort of…sort of overwhelmed.”

“That’s fine,” Kate said.

They didn’t say anything else, even as they turned onto Cassie’s street. When they reached the apartment building, Cassie turned to Kate and blurted, “Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”

Kate blinked. “Sort of,” she finally said.

“Sort of? What does that mean?”

Kate kicked at the pavement and said to the ground, “There’s this grove that has pretty good wind cover so—“

“You’ve been sleeping outside?” Cassie cut her off. “Jesus, it must be in the low thirties at night.”

“I’m fine,” Kate tilted her head up slightly.

“Yeah, but a heated building must be better, even for someone like you.”

“Well…”

“C’mon,” Cassie insisted, fishing her keys from her purse and refusing to examine why she was doing this. “I’ll make you sleep on the couch, if that makes you feel better.”

Kate visibly hesitated, but maybe the notion of a couch sounded inviting enough.

“Sure,” she said, though she sounded thoroughly unsure. “Thanks.”

***

Kate stayed in one corner of the living room and peered around the apartment while Cassie first undressed in her bedroom (leaving her date clothes in a heap behind the hamper) and then rooted around for sheets and extra pillows.

“You said I’d be sleeping on the couch,” Kate protested when Cassie unfolded the sofa and revealed it to be a sleeper sofa.

“This is the couch,” Cassie told her, tugging on the sheets. “Here, help me.”

Kate hesitated, but she obeyed after a moment. Cassie wouldn’t wonder until later how a monster knew how to make such neat corners with bed sheets.

***

Cassie slept deep into the morning, and when she registered how close to noon it was when she woke, she half expected Kate to be gone.

Instead, she found the girl sitting on the remade couch, reading a magazine with a mug of coffee on the small side table. Kate looked up when Cassie eased open the bedroom door.

“Hey,” Kate said with a small grin. “I made coffee.”

“Oh,” Cassie said. She nodded. “Thanks.”

It took until that moment for Cassie to realize that she still had her silk sleep cap on, and she immediately touched at it with the beginnings of a blush seeping into her face. Kate, however, had already gone back to her magazine. Cassie ducked into the bathroom, feeling foolish and off balance. Men—white men—were the ones who got weird about her silk cap. It shouldn’t matter with skinny monster girls camping out on her couch.

Five minutes later, Cassie sipped at the coffee Kate had made (not bad by any standards), peered into the fridge and tried to decide whether eggs were an adequate substitute for fresh, bloody venison.

“So, can I get you anything for breakfast?” Cassie asked, poking her head back into the living room. “Or do you just eat ungulates?”

Kate looked up from her magazine.

“What? Oh, no, I’m fine,” she said.

“You sure?” Cassie entered the living room properly. “I’ve got a package of bacon.”

“Thanks, but that wouldn’t do it for me. It’s too, um…” Kate rustled her magazine and looked mildly embarrassed. “Too sanitized.”

“Ah,” Cassie nodded. Some part of her wondered how she was having this conversation, but she ignored it. “Well, no freshly dead cows on me, I’m afraid.”

Kate laughed slightly.

“I don’t go for cows much,” she said. “Deer’s usually better.”

Cassie paused.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve tried cow, but usually those things are fed corn their whole lives and you can totally tell. Deer have a more varied range and—“ Kate cut herself off, setting down the magazine entirely. “Christ, I’m sorry. That’s disgusting.”

“No, no.” Cassie shook her head then amended, “I mean yeah, it’s sort of gross, but then again, I eat meat too, and it’d be a bit hypocritical to—” Cassie cut herself off. “Sorry, so you’re not the one eating cows?”

“Sorry?”

“All those cows and goats people have been finding. All torn up and half eaten. That’s not you?”

Kate blinked. “No,” she said. She leaned forward, her brow lowering. “Something’s eating livestock?”

“Yeah, for over a month now,” Cassie said. “Dogs and cats, too, according to some.” Cassie fell silent; Kate’s posture tightened, and she looked like she was caught in some deep thought.

“What do they think it is?” Kate asked.

“Bear,” Cassie said. “But no one’s seen it.” Somehow, the idea of this being a bear sounded laughable now, especially with the way Kate practically radiated unease.

“That’s…hm,” Kate said.

“What?”

“I haven’t smelled bear in the area at all,” Kate said.

Heavy silence surrounded them. Kate stood suddenly and thrust out one hand.

“Listen, I’d better get going,” she said. “Thanks for the couch and the coffee. Sorry for breaking into your apartment and threatening you.”

“I…yeah.” Cassie took the hand. Again, iron-tight grip. “Okay.” Kate pumped Cassie’s hand then dropped it and turned toward the door.

“Hang on,” Cassie blurted. “Let me give you my phone number.”

Kate paused and cocked her head.

“Why?” she asked.

“Just in case.” Cassie shrugged evasively and turned to the small side table that held pens and scraps of paper. She scribbled out her digits on the back of an old receipt and thrust it in Kate’s direction. “You never know,” she said. “In case you ever need that picture. I dunno.”

Kate looked between the scrap of paper and Cassie’s face then accepted the number.

“Thanks,” she said. She stashed the receipt in her jeans pocket.

A few minutes later, when Kate had disappeared down the road, Cassie was still standing at the window. She stared at an empty apartment complex and wondered what the hell her life had come to between yesterday and today.

Her phone buzzed.

Cassie strode over to the coffee table, picked up her phone, and found a text from “Unknown.”

 _Kate_ , it read.

***

Cassie seriously entertained the idea of skipping work on Monday. She went so far as to lie in bed for far too long and watch her clock inch closer to 9 a.m. But as she stared at the spackled ceiling, Cassie tried to imagine what it would look like for Jason to see an empty desk today. She groaned, long and loud, but did eventually swing her feet out of bed.

(No blondes waited for Cassie by her car. That didn’t matter, though. Why was she thinking about it?)

Cassie did see Jason at work that day, but only from a distance. He seemed intent to not so much as look in Cassie’s direction. Good. Let him wallow for a few days. Cassie, meanwhile, threw herself into being as busy as possible because that had always been the best defense against life.

Over the next three days, Cassie kept up this pattern of working, avoiding Jason, and, on the side, keeping an eye out for Kate. She still wasn’t sure what to make of that last one.

On Thursday, Cassie returned to the newsroom after a lengthy interview with one of the town’s mayoral candidates only to find half the newsroom gathered around the police scanner.

“What’s happened?” Cassie asked the person closest to her: long-nailed Olivia Jenkins.

“It’s a body,” Olivia told her in a breathless tone. “The bear’s gotten a person.”

***

That night, the local news station spent their entire half-hour segment detailing the body. Cassie could only watch for a few minutes before she had to turn it off. She had a deep, niggling feeling that she could have prevented this somehow. She called Dean’s number one more time, but only got the predictable busy signal. Cassie dithered around her apartment for a solid hour before she made up her mind and called Kate’s number.

It rang far too many times, and Cassie was ready to hear a voicemail when suddenly, a groggy female voice said, “Hello?”

“Kate?” Cassie asked. “This is Cassie.”

“Cassie. Hang on.” Cassie heard something shifting and rustling. “You all right?” Kate’s voice came again, this time sounding much clearer.

“Not really,” Cassie said, deciding to cut to the chase. “You know the thing that’s been killing livestock? It’s moved on. There’s been a human death.” A long silence followed this.

“Okay,” Kate said slowly. “And you’re calling me why?”

“This isn’t a bear, is it?” Cassie asked.

Cassie heard a long sigh and more rustling.

“I don’t know anything for sure,” Kate said.

“But you know _something_.”

Another long pause.

“You’re right, it’s no bear,” Kate said in a weary voice. “Bears mark _everything_ ; they like to let you know they’re here. I haven’t caught so much as a whiff.”

“So what is this?”

“No idea,” Kate admitted. “I’ve been keeping an eye out the last few days. Whatever it is, it’s not coming into the forest. I even ventured into some of the farmlands, and I didn’t find anything there, either. It’s not leaving any trace. Nothing. And that freaks me the hell out.”

“Why?”

“’Cause that means it’s not corporeal,” Kate said. “If no one’s seen this thing and I can’t smell it, it might be some kind of spirit. Spirits are nasty.”

“Spirit?” Cassie echoed. “Seriously? You think this is something supernatural?”

“Takes one to know one, doesn’t it?” Kate asked.

“Shit.” Cassie dug one hand into her hair. “Shit,” she repeated.

“Agreed,” Kate said.

“The last time I dealt with spirits my…someone died,” Cassie said. “Multiple someones.”

“Yeah, it tends to go that way,” Kate said heavily. “Listen, this is my advice. Find a hunter, someone who knows how to deal with this stuff. Then go in the bomb shelter until everything blows over.”

“I wish,” Cassie said heatedly, now starting to pace the living room. “I know a hunter, but his effing number is dead. I’ve already tried calling.”

A long silence from the other end. “Okay,” Kate said. “Um. I have a number. I can give it to you; they’ll probably answer.”

“Really?” Cassie straightened.

“Sure. Hang on.” After this came a lot of muttering and more shuffling, but eventually Kate read off a series of digits that Cassie wrote on the dry erase board in her kitchen.

“So. You call them and hopefully someone will get out here before anyone else dies,” Kate said. “I’m going to have to ask...listen, I’m going to have to leave town tonight and I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention me at all.”

Something in Cassie’s chest abruptly sank. “What? Why?”

“Hunters and I don’t mix,” Kate said. “And it’ll be safer if I’m far away from the scene of the crime when they get here. They might be willing to talk to me before they shoot, but I don’t want to even be on their list of suspects.”

“Oh,” Cassie said stupidly. She should have guessed that. “Um, yeah,” she said. “I can do that.”

“Thanks.”

There followed an awkward silence in which Cassie wondered whether she ought to be saying something like, ‘sorry you have to go.’ She wondered how Kate would take that.

“Well,” Kate broke the silence. “Thanks again.”

“For what?”

“The couch. It was nice.”

“Right. You’re welcome. Thanks for walking me home.”

“Sure.”

Another silence.

“Bye,” Kate said.

“Bye,” Cassie echoed.

Kate hung up. Cassie frowned at her kitchen.

***

No matter how off-kilter Cassie felt, she had a dead body scattered across someone’s yard and a local police force barely equipped to deal with this…spirit thing. Kate had been right; they needed a professional.

Cassie called the number on the dry erase board with her bare feet wriggling against the tile and her favorite sweater hanging off her shoulders. She listened to the phone ring four, five, six times. She wasn’t too discouraged. Hunters couldn’t always pick up the phone, she figured. Besides, voicemail was much better than a dead, constant tone.

The ringing stopped and the phone clicked over to voicemail.

“ _Hey, this is Dean. You should know the drill_ —“

Cassie didn’t hear much beyond that because she yanked the phone away like it had turned into something with too many legs. She stared at the screen; Dean’s voice echoed tinnily from the speaker. She heard a beep and hurriedly hung up.

Cassie continued to stare at the phone.

 _His voice is deeper,_ she thought.

Then Cassie laughed.

She couldn’t possibly help it. So many years without a hint of Dean or his supernatural world, and here it all came crashing back at once. Maybe there was a hysterical edge to Cassie’s laughter, but she didn’t think anyone could have blamed her.

It took another lap around the kitchen and a few muttered words of encouragement before Cassie dialed the phone again, this time gripping one of the kitchen chairs. She waited through several rings then listened to Dean’s voicemail in its entirety. The tone beeped.

“Hey, Dean,” Cassie started. She paused, licked her lips. “This is Cassie Robinson. If you remember me. Um. I’m calling because I have some weird deaths happening over here and I need someone to help. Pretty sure this is your kind of work.” Pause. “Oh, I’ve moved, though. I’m in a town called Harris. Harris, Iowa. North of Des Moines, so. There’s that.” Cassie looked at the ceiling as if beseeching some higher power’s help. “Call me back,” she finished lamely and hung up with a sharp exhale.

“Wonderful, Cassie,” she muttered to herself. “Real come-back.”

Cassie tossed the phone onto the kitchen counter and went to make popcorn.

***

The frenzy over the mauled body cooled down over the next few days, and still no hint of the supposed bear appeared. Not a peep from Dean either, and this despite Cassie’s multiple calls. Maybe something had happened between now and Kate getting his number. (And how exactly Kate had met Dean Winchester was a mystery Cassie needed to solve at some point.) Maybe Dean was flat out ignoring her, though that didn’t fit in with Cassie’s knowledge of the man. Then again, perhaps he’d changed in the last ten odd years. Cassie knew she certainly had; Dean would probably have trouble lining the Cassie of the present up with the freshly graduated journalist he’d dated ten years ago.

After a solid week and a half with no word from Dean, a second body appeared in the town’s suburbs. A teenager. Torn in half. Someone took pictures that Cassie’s newspaper opted not to publish, but Cassie did see them and she had to excuse herself to the bathroom for several minutes.

When she returned, pale and shaky, she heard Olivia discussing the case in a loud voice with Sharon, the editor.

“Yes, that’s right, the teen claimed to see something the night before,” Olivia said in an unnervingly bright voice. “Some giant dog laying across the threshold of the house, his mom told us. _She_ didn’t see anything, that’s the strange part.”

“Did this teen have a history of mental illness?” Sharon asked, frowning.

“I can’t say,” Olivia shrugged. “But I’m not even sure whether to include it in the story. This is a bear, not a dog, everyone says so.”

Cassie realized that she stood, frozen, just behind the two women. She hurriedly clacked to her desk. A giant dog seen the night before the attack, but only by the victim. If that didn’t smack of the supernatural, Cassie didn’t know what did.

***

Cassie gave Dean’s phone one last call, got nothing, then called Kate’s number.

Kate’s voicemail didn’t even have her name, just an automated voice telling Cassie to leave a message at the tone.

“Kate, it’s Cassie,” Cassie said. She stood just outside the newspaper’s building, casting glances around in case anyone could overhear. “Listen, Dean isn’t answering any calls and there’s been a second killing. I might need to go after this thing myself and…well, it’d be good to have some help.” Cassie rubbed at her face and shivered against the late autumn chill. “Call me back,” she said. She hung up and looked over the town’s small downtown area, all shrouded in mist today. It looked like just the right place for a monster to tear people apart.

Cassie shivered again, but she wasn’t ready to go inside yet. She could feel a deep panic starting to well inside her, the panic of those starting to recognize that the task before them will have to get done without any help.

 _You know_ , a part of her spoke up too casually, _you might consider that—_

_I know._

_Just saying. She’s not human, after all. She’d probably have no trouble lying to you. Get you off her back, let her keep picking off livestock and now humans. Easy as anything._

_Yeah, good,_ Cassie snapped. _And she had a million opportunities to finish me off if she wanted to. She drinks coffee and reads_ Vogue. _Besides, this kid saw a black dog. That can’t be coincidence._

That other part of her brain remained silent, but it was a smug sort of silence. Cassie growled to herself and dove back into the building. She stalked all the way back to her desk, woke up her computer, and opened Google.

After a moment’s thought, she typed out, “giant black dog” and started reading.

***

Forty-eight hours later, Cassie sat on her living room floor and frowned at the map she’d attached to the wall with double-sided tape. She’d gone all CSI and mapped out as many attacks as had been reported; blue dots for livestock, red dots for humans. Undeniably, they clustered at the north end of town. A huge swathe of forestland sat directly to the east of the farms and scattered neighborhoods. Anything could easily slip into the tree cover and escape human notice.

Cassie wrinkled her nose and looked back down to the book sitting open in her lap. She’d made a recent raid on the library’s stock of books concerning monsters, ghosts, the whole nine yards. Useless, honestly, because half the books were more literary analysis of folklore than anything else.

Cassie checked her phone out of some last vestiges of hope but as per usual, nothing. No Dean, no Kate. Fat lot of help those two were.

So that left Cassie right where she’d been five minutes ago: in front of a vaguely helpful map, with a vaguely helpful book, with potentially helpful people ignoring her calls. Not enough evidence to give to police and hope for them to take her seriously. No one in town she trusted enough to ask for help. Something out there eating people.

Cassie tossed the book aside and went into the kitchen to make her fifth cup of tea for the night. As she slumped against the kitchen table and watched the kettle boil, she surveyed her options once again and came up with precious little. Yet she didn’t have it in her to sit around and wait for news of the third body, the fourth body. She needed—

A sharp rap at the door.

Cassie froze for several seconds then darted to the front door. She swung it open, ready to see a head of blond hair or a pair of green eyes. Instead she got hit with a faceful of—

“Jason?” Cassie blurted.

Jason stood blinking at her front door. He still had on his work clothes, though they looked wrinkled. He had a glassy sheen to his eyes.

“Hey,” he said. His breath wafted with alcohol, and Cassie nearly coughed. “I, um.” Jason rubbed at the back of his neck. “I needed to come and…and apologize because I—“

“No,” Cassie cut him off. Jason blinked again.

“Uh.”

“No, when you apologize to me, you’ll be sober,” Cassie snapped. “And your clothes will be ironed.”

She then neatly shut the door because among all the issues in her life right now, Jason barely registered.

Cassie went back into the kitchen and took the kettle off the stove, half listening for a plaintive knocking at the door. But perhaps Jason had actually taken her words to heart because the door remained silent. Cassie prepared her tea and took several sips even when it scalded the roof of her mouth.

Something clattered in the living room. Something that sounded like paper. So that would be the map. Damn cheap double-sided tape. Cassie blinked into her still-too-hot tea, released a single barked laugh, and then placed the mug on the table.

Ten minutes later, Cassie emerged from her apartment (no sign of Jason; that was a blessing) armed with a flashlight, her field hockey stick, an old point-and-shoot camera, and her cellphone. She used the last item to call first Dean then Kate, leaving each of them with the same curt message.

“It’s November 15,” she said. “I’m going to check out the area where the attacks look like they’re thickest. I’ll call you if I come back in one piece. I think it’s a black dog.”

Asking to get killed, her mother would have scolded her. Fearless, her father might have said proudly. Cassie decided to call it doing what needed to be done.

***

For nearly three hours, Cassie drove through the country roads keeping an eye out for anything unusual. It was largely an exercise in avoiding the deer that bounded across the road. It was cold. And boring.

By the time she’d crisscrossed the tri-county area several times, Cassie had used up her supply of Righteous Drive to Do Good and went home feeling thoroughly put out.

***

The next day, Cassie went through her work with a tired, sullen demeanor. It built up like a thundercloud until, when Cassie drove home, it felt liable to turn into something nasty.

As Cassie turned into her apartment complex, she almost didn’t see the figure sitting against the front door to her apartment. Cassie only registered the blond hair when she climbed out of her car, purse in one hand and stack of paperwork in the other.

Cassie froze.

Kate stared and half smiled.

The half smile disappeared when Cassie, fueled by the internal thunderstorm, marched down the sidewalk with a half dozen scathing remarks on the tip of her tongue.

Kate scrambled to her feet. “You’re okay,” she said in a faint voice. The tone was enough to make Cassie reconsider some of the scathing remarks.

The sky opened and started to spatter rain.

After some internal struggle, Cassie said gruffly, “Come inside.”

***

Late fall rain had a certain sullenness to it, Cassie decided. Heavy, gray, and few passive aggressive degrees from becoming sleet. Cassie watched the first drops splat against her kitchen window like bugs on a windshield.

“I mean, how many calls did I make?” Cassie asked.

Cassie shifted her focus to Kate again, who sat across the kitchen table. Though, she didn’t sit so much as perch on the edge of her chair. Her eyes looked even wider than usual.

“I didn’t ignore them, really.”

“You received the calls though. And you decided not to answer,” Cassie clarified. A long pause. “I left voicemails _and_ texts,” Cassie added a little desperately.

“I know. I didn’t read or listen to anything at first,” Kate lifted her head.

Cassie felt something catch in her chest. It must have showed in her face because Kate’s shoulders set and her lips thinned.

“Look, I thought hunters were going to be here within a few days and I needed to be scarce.” Kate said. “I needed to cut off contact with you. Any hunter with enough of a brain would have been able to track my calls. I was on the edge of tossing that phone altogether.”

“Great.” Cassie shoved herself back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Good to know.”

“God, I…” Kate scrubbed at her face. “Okay, listen, you need to understand, there is literally a whole network of people in this country whose job is to kill things like me—”

“And what are you?” Cassie asked. The bitterness coating her mouth slipped into the words. “I still don’t know.”

Kate’s nose wrinkled.

“Werewolf.” She spat the word. “I’m a werewolf. And if a hunter caught wind of what I am, they’d shoot me on principle. So I gotta stay completely off their radar. Move around a lot, don’t make friends—”

“Yeah, fine, I believe you,” Cassie snapped. She sighed and braced her good arm on the tabletop, one hand diving into her hair. She gave herself a moment. “I believe that you needed to stay down,” she said. “But if you’d just listened to _one_ voicemail—”

“I know, I suck, I let my caution take over,” Kate cut in. “I’ve been kicking myself for several days now. That’s why I came here instead of hightailing it.”

Cassie lifted her eyebrows slightly. “What?”

“I came to apologize,” Kate replied. She hesitated. “And I guess to help.”

“You guess?”

“I don’t _hunt_ supernatural things!” Kate burst out. “Okay? I _am_ the supernatural thing. But I’m staying until this thing is dead and I don’t have to worry anymore about you going off and _looking_ for it and risking getting killed.”

Cassie stared.

“Okay,” Cassie said. She felt abruptly off kilter, like the massive weight she’d been trying to budge suddenly disappeared.

“Sorry again,” Kate said, making to stand. “I’ll be in the forest, probably. You have my number—”

“You can stay here,” Cassie interrupted her. Kate paused. “No point in you going off to live in the woods,” Cassie continued. “Just stay here.”

Kate blinked. “I can’t impose like that,” she said.

“God, you sound like my mother,” Cassie scoffed. “Just…I’ll make you clean dishes once in a while if that makes you feel any better.”

Kate looked to the side as if considering this.

Finally, in a careful voice, she said, “I mean. I can cook.”

“Well then.” Cassie stood. “You’re hired.”

***

Having Kate in the apartment, Cassie discovered, was like having a diminutive mother who sometimes flashed fangs when she was annoyed. It took shockingly little time for Cassie to get used to it.

Except maybe it wasn’t so shocking, because Kate demonstrated a talent for slipping into Cassie’s life. Not so much shifting things around as filling the spaces in between. Kate didn’t seem to sleep much, and when she did she usually stretched out on the couch with a blanket and a borrowed pillow. Her pack stayed in a far corner of the living room. She ran errands for Cassie, cleaned dishes as promised, and otherwise made herself useful. (Cassie wondered whether this was Kate’s way of an extended apology for leaving, though Cassie couldn’t bring herself to reject the help.)

Plus the woman could cook. Cassie had healthy respect for anyone who knew how to transform raw foodstuffs into an actual meal.

“It’s not so hard,” Kate said. She glanced over her shoulder and gave Cassie a wry smile while she plopped a handful of chopped carrots into a quietly simmering pot.

“It’s impossible,” Cassie protested from the kitchen table. She had her laptop open in front of her in a thin facsimile of being productive.

“I think you’re exaggerating.”

“Okay, fine, I know how to make pasta and scrambled eggs and bacon. But I also burned a salad once.”

Kate tossed the last of her carrot into the pot then turned around and squinted at Cassie.

“You’re definitely exaggerating now,” she said.

“Dead serious,” Cassie replied. “I had a salad sitting on the stove once and didn’t realize that I’d accidentally knocked the burner on. I had to go answer a call and when I came back I had a small kitchen fire.”

Kate burst into a violent snort.

“God,” she choked. “Okay, I believe you. No letting Cassie near the stove.”

“It’s for the best,” Cassie said, and returned her attention to the pile of emails in her inbox. She managed to read through three of them before glancing up again.

She caught Kate digging through the spice rack that existed more for Cassie’s mom’s benefit than anything else. Cassie watched as Kate popped open lids and sniffed their contents. She eventually settled on two bottles and brought them back over to the pot.

“So where did you learn to cook?” Cassie asked. Kate released a small laugh as she shook oregano over the simmering broth.

“You mean because I eat raw deer.”

“I mean…” Cassie shifted in her seat. “Yeah. I guess.”

Kate set down the oregano jar. “I was born human,” she said. “I learned to cook from my dad.”

“Oh,” Cassie said.

“I was bitten, uh, about two years ago,” Kate continued. She kept her attention on the pot. “I was human longer than I’ve been a werewolf. So. That’s why I know how to run a vacuum cleaner and go to the grocery store.”

“Oh,” Cassie repeated.

“Anyway, that’s how I met Sam and Dean,” Kate continued. “They were investigating the werewolf that turned my boyfriend.”

Kate moved across the kitchen to the fridge, clattering open the crisper and rooting through plastic bags. Cassie watched her, unwilling to prompt anything.

“It’s a complicated story,” Kate continued, straightening. Two plastic bags swung from her hand. “But a werewolf bit my boyfriend and, later, it also bit a friend of ours. Then the friend killed my boyfriend and bit me.”

“Some friend,” Cassie murmured.

“Yeah.” Kate thumped the bags onto the counter. “But Sam and Dean found the original werewolf. Killed him. Came for us, but by then Mike and Brian were dead and I was gone.”

“Did they chase you?” Cassie asked.

“Nah. I left them a video to explain what had happened to us. They know I’m trying to keep on the straight and narrow. But like I said, I’m not interested in meeting up with them again. They’re too trigger happy, Dean especially.”

“Mm,” Cassie hummed, staring at her emails without seeing them. “That hasn’t changed, then.”

“What?” Kate turned slightly.

“I knew Dean years and years ago,” Cassie said, looking up and smiling slightly. “He and Sam, they got rid of a ghost in my town.”

“Really?” Kate’s eyebrows rose. “Small world.”

Cassie shifted in her chair and turned over the idea of telling Kate that she and Dean had dated for a time. She decided against it in the end; it felt like something too personal, too touch and go. Besides, Kate didn’t sound like she was a big fan of either Winchester. Better to make it sound like Cassie had been a run-of-the-mill victim in a run-of-the-mill supernatural case.

Maybe Kate was glad to have told Cassie something of her history, because she started humming as she washed celery at the sink. Cassie refocused on her emails and thoughtlessly wriggled her socked toes against the kitchen floor.

***

They spent the next several days learning more about giant black dogs than Cassie cared to know. After describing the second victim’s claim of a dog across his threshold, Kate agreed that it sounded like one of the black dog legends. Dogs that foretold death and misfortune; it certainly fit.

“Like the Grimm in _Harry Potter_ ,” Kate said in a bright voice.

“Exactly like that,” Cassie said wryly. “If we’re lucky, this is actually Gary Oldman in disguise.”

 Most nights they sat in the living room among scattered books, reading and occasionally bouncing ideas off of one another. On one of these nights, Cassie slapped her book shut and tossed it to the side.

“Why are there so many different kinds of demon ghost dogs?” she asked rhetorically. “And why did one of them just have to pick this town to screw over? Why couldn’t we have a vampire or something? We’d know how to work with a vampire.” Kate grunted, still bent over the laptop. Cassie rubbed at her eye and pulled the next book toward her.

“Well, this claims that a barghest would be defeated like a ghost,” Kate said after a moment. “So we could…throw salt on it?”

“If it were a proper ghost, we’d have to find a body and salt and burn it,” Cassie sighed. “But I don’t get the impression that black dogs are ghosts in the normal sense. More like spirits.” Cassie turned another page, then frowned. “Y’know,” she looked up at Kate. “What if we try and trap it?”

“And then what?” Kate glanced up.

“I don’t know. Try to burn it, kill it with something like iron.”

“Yeah, great, let’s just throw things at the giant, man-eating dog and see what sticks.”

“Oh come on, we need to start somewhere.”

“Yeah, and then you get killed. I don’t think so.”

Cassie scowled. “What’s with you?” she asked.

“Nothing’s with me.”

“You’re fine until we start talking about this black dog and then you turn into a wet cat. You don’t want to fight it that badly, just say so and you can leave.”

“I already said I would help. That’s not…” Kate grunted and set aside the laptop. “I mean, _you_ want to be some supernatural vigilante but guess what? Someone’s going to have to save your ass.”

“I never asked—”

“Yeah, well, I want to.” Kate rubbed at the back of her neck abruptly. “I’m worried that I won’t manage it.”

Cassie blinked. “Why do you care?” she asked.

Kate’s face collapsed. “I don’t—” she started then stood abruptly.

“Where are you going?” Cassie asked as Kate slouched to the front door.

“I need a walk.”

By the time Cassie scrambled to her feet, the door had slammed shut. Cassie stared at it, then threw up her hands. Fine, let Kate go have a good teen angst in the woods. Probably planning on slumping around and staring mournfully into deer carcasses.

***

Kate didn’t show up the rest of that night. If it hadn’t been for the pack sitting in the corner of the room, Cassie might have worried that she’d disappeared forever. As it was, Cassie spent nearly an hour peering out the window and vacillating on whether to call Kate. After that she ate a bag of popcorn, tried to read a book, failed, took her meds, brushed her teeth, slipped into bed, and watched reruns of _Friends_ without registering the plot half the time. She fell asleep with her phone held loosely in her hand.

When Cassie jerked her eyes open, it took her several seconds to realize that she didn’t have a small crowd of people in her apartment, just one TV playing a few feet away. Cassie levered herself up and groped around for the remote. She flicked the TV off and, in the ensuing silence, heard cabinet doors clacking.

Cassie eased herself out of bed and shivered when her bare feet hit the hardwood floor. Crossing her arms against the chill, Cassie crossed her bedroom and creaked open the door.

Light spilled from the kitchen, sending the living room into strange shadow. When Cassie peered into the kitchen, she found Kate setting a kettle on the stove. She clicked the burner on before looking over to Cassie.

Kate had on a dark blue shirt and brown jacket, the same outfit she’d been wearing earlier. They’d been clean before; now Cassie saw a thick streak of browned blood across the shirt. Cassie’s stomach gave a small lurch, but Cassie’s brain told it to calm down for once.

“Feel better?” Cassie asked.

“What?”

“People usually get cranky when they’re hungry.”

Kate blinked then shrugged with one shoulder.

“I guess,” she said. She returned her attention to the kettle like she planned on watching it boil. Cassie remained at the kitchen’s entrance and tried to decide whether that had been a wordless request that Kate be left alone.

“Full moon is in a few nights,” Kate said.

“Sorry?” Cassie said.

“You worried?” Kate asked.

“Should I be? What happens? Do you go furry?”

“No.” Kate straightened. She looked at Cassie with dark, full eyes. “Werewolves still look pretty human when they transform. Get the fangs and the claws. Then they go berserker and eat the hearts of any prey they can get hold of.”

Cassie’s heart gave a small jump. “And?” she said.

“I wanted to warn you.”

Cassie leaned her head back slightly. “Okay,” she said. Her voice hardened. “How about I tell you that the first time I saw you, you were tearing a deer open and the second time you were acting like you were ready to tear _my_ throat out. I am thoroughly convinced that you’re dangerous; you don’t need to tell me that.”

“So why—”

“Because you’ve also got a mind,” Cassie interrupted. “You’ve got a human mind that can…can reason and hope and make dumb jokes. You walked me home and like to bake muffins and read fashion magazines. You’re dangerous, but I don’t think you’re a monster.”

“Yeah, well, most of the time I have a mind,” Kate said. Her voice sounded thick. “I can make myself change and still know who I am. But sometimes things…slip. Usually during the full moon. And I start to have trouble remembering anything besides how hungry I am.”

Cassie didn’t speak.

“You know I had a sister?” Kate asked. Cassie slowly shook her head. “She got in a car accident and was going to die, so I bit her. She healed, but…” Kate inhaled too sharply. “She couldn’t control the hunger. I couldn’t control her. So I had to…” Kate looked over to Cassie suddenly with a strained smile that didn’t resemble a smile at all. “Well,” she said with a small shrug.

It took Cassie a moment to understand. Her stomach twisted.

“That’s the problem with the hunger,” Kate continued, and Cassie struggled to refocus. “I have to wonder whether I’m just fooling myself, whether I’m as bad as Tasha and it’s all going to come to a head one day. I mean,” Kate jammed the heel of her hand into her eye suddenly. “God, every fucking _instinct_ tells me to hunt humans.”

Cassie’s stomach twisted even more.

“And have you?”

Kate bit her lip, shook her head.

Cassie stood stiffly in her kitchen doorway and tried to decide whether she believed this. “Okay,” she said at last. “But you’re afraid you’re going to? And you’re afraid it’s going to be me?”

“I am.”

Cassie moved to pull one of the kitchen chairs out and lower herself into it. She rested her arms on the tabletop and scrutinized Kate.

“You can probably hear my heart hammering right now,” Cassie said. Kate nodded weakly.

“I can go—” she started.

“Hang on, we already had that conversation,” Cassie scowled. She traced absent patterns on the table, trying to get her mind to settle. She could feel Kate standing rigid no more than a foot away.

“Well,” Cassie said. “What if I get a silver knife?”

Kate tilted her head. “You being sarcastic or serious?” Her voice came out cracked.

“Dead serious,” Cassie said, and lifted her head, her jaw set. “I’ll invest in one if it means you’ll stay.”

“What?”

“I want you to stay. You can cook and I like you.”

Kate blinked. “I’d be okay with that.”

“Good.” Cassie stood and, after a moment of consideration, reached out to pat Kate’s shoulder. Kate gazed at Cassie with wide eyes, and it made Cassie duck her head in self-consciousness. “Better get to sleep,” Cassie said in a lower voice.

“Okay.” Kate reached up to grasp Cassie’s hand for a moment. The contact made Cassie flinch, though not out of any discomfort. The opposite, really. Kate dropped her hand, Cassie slid hers from Kate’s shoulder, and they turned apart.

***

Two days later, a construction worker found the third human victim. She was six years old and they only were able to identify her from a plastic hairclip her mother had put into her hair that morning. Cassie turned off the TV, went to her bathroom, and bent over the toilet, waiting for everything to come back up. Kate found her like that and rubbed Cassie’s back with a thin, ashen expression.

“You understand now?” Cassie asked when she was finally able to stand without drowning in nausea.

Kate said she did.

***

They exhausted the books in the library and perused more supernatural forums than Cassie thought was really healthy. She started getting into the habit of spending her lunch breaks and lulls in the workday to peruse a few more websites, a few more message boards. She’d recently abandoned lurking and reading threads in favor of joining the communities and asking her questions outright.

On a Wednesday afternoon, after most of her work had been finished, Cassie decided to check if anyone had replied to any of her various posts scattered across half a dozen supernaturally themed message boards.

Halfway through this task, Cassie found a response from someone named _grth’d45_.

“ _The problem_ ,” they wrote, “ _is that the black dog legend is so pervasive in so many cultures that there are several dozen versions, all of which might have slightly different properties and weaknesses. The most cost-effective method is probably to bring a lot of salt and holy water and any other tool you have and basically throw them until something sticks._ ”

Cassie leaned back in her seat. Great.

Her phone buzzed on the desk, and Cassie picked it up. I was from Kate.

“ _Can u pick me up after work?_ ” it read. “ _At Safeway; have too many grocery bags._ ”

Cassie grinned at her phone without thinking and texted back that she was on her way.

***

Cassie pulled up outside the local Safeway to find Kate slouched among several paper bags with sunglasses on despite the cloud cover. She looked every inch the rebellious teenager. Cassie laughed before opening the door.

“Hey, punk,” she called out. “Need a lift?”

Kate rolled her head in Cassie’s direction and smiled slightly.

“If you’re going my way,” she said. Cassie rolled her eyes and grabbed two of the nearest bags. As she rounded the car to the trunk, she spotted two boys—maybe high school age—lounging on a set of benches and glancing at Kate more often than not.

“You encourage them at all?” Cassie asked, jerking her head slightly, when Kate approached with four bags (the showoff).

“Them? Nah,” Kate said. She paused. “Maybe a little. But barely.”

Cassie laughed.

“They’re not my type, anyway,” Kate continued.

“Not bad boy enough?”

“I don’t go for the bad boy type, actually.”

“You don’t?”

“Dude, you’re the one who came up with the idea that I’m a rebellious teenager; I never supported that reading of me. I’m not even a teenager, I’m 22.”

“Sorry, you’re just really young to an old fart like me,” Cassie said. “So what’s your type?”

Kate shrugged and rearranged paper bags. “Nice people.”

“That’s it? Nice people?”

“They’re surprisingly hard to come across. The genuinely good ones.”

Cassie considered this. “Yeah,” she conceded. She glanced over to realize Kate was watching her. Cassie reached up to pull down the trunk door.

As they pulled away from the curb, Kate said apropos of nothing, “Full moon is tonight.”

“Oh.” Cassie blinked at the road and tried to categorize her feelings about that. “Are there…should I…”

“I’ll probably spend tonight in the woods,” Kate said.

Cassie nodded and swallowed past the small, prickly lump in the middle of her chest. It didn’t have to be a big deal, but Kate seemed so put out by it.

Cassie pulled into the apartment complex and parked. She gathered her purse, looked up, and nearly choked on a gasp.

She could hear Kate saying something from nearby, but it was as if the entire world had tunneled down to the hulking shape sprawled across the threshold to Cassie’s apartment. A small hill of black matted fur that rippled and heaved with steady breaths. The creature’s eyes were not shut; they pierced Cassie with livid red. Cassie took until then to realize that her heart beat so hard and cold she half wondered if she was having a heart attack—

“ _Cassie_!”

Cassie screamed and lurched away from whatever had touched her. Something—someone was trapped in here with her and it spoke things that Cassie could partially decipher but largely not.

“CASSIE.”

The figure rushed into focus. Cassie’s stomach lurched.

“I—” She lost whatever she might have said next when she reached out to clutch at Kate’s shirt, hauling herself across the seat to duck underneath the arms Kate offered. “No, no, no,” Cassie realized she was chanting. “No, no, no.”

“No what?” Kate asked in a taut, thin voice. “Cassie, what?”

Cassie angled her gaze near her apartment and released a rasping groan at the sight of the creature. It had stood. Its hair hung in lank ropes from its muzzle and belly, its teeth just appeared from a pitch-black muzzle. Then slowly, it turned. It left the front stoop of Cassie’s apartment in long, thudding strides. Kate had started talking again; Cassie watched the creature as it disappeared between two apartment buildings.

Something touched her cheek, and Cassie looked to find Kate’s hand.

“—get you inside at least? I can get you—”

“I saw it,” Cassie rasped. “It’s here.”

***

Cassie stared into her hands. She could see Kate pacing in her periphery.

“I couldn’t smell _anything_ ,” Kate said for the third or fourth time. “See anything, smell anything, hear _fucking anything_.”

Black dogs portending death. Death by what, though? Death by the dog? Death by some other accident or tragedy? Cassie glanced up. Kate’s incisors were a little longer than normal. She was angry.

“You’re _sure_ though?” Kate asked. “You’re—”

“I saw it, I know what I saw, stop asking,” Cassie bit out. Kate paused.

“Does it know we’re trying to kill it?” Kate asked. “But then why not attack you outright? Why not show itself to me?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie croaked. “Maybe there are rules.”

A shuffle, and Cassie lifted her head when Kate’s hand landed on her knee.

“We still don’t know how to kill it,” Kate said.

Cassie shook her head. “I have guesses but nothing for sure—”

“Then we leave town,” Kate said. Her eyes were suspiciously bright. “We drive to the next town, no, the next state. As far as we need to…we drive fast.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Cassie said. “The lore all says they pick their victims and don’t…don’t let them go.”

“We go in the middle of a city, find somewhere up on the top floors.”

“Kate.” Cassie took Kate’s small, warm hand in hers and gripped as tight as she wanted. “Kate, it’s not like that. It’s not real in the way you and I are real. It doesn’t care how far I travel. I don’t even know if…the legends don’t always say the black dog does the killing. Sometimes it’s just the messenger.”

Kate blinked; her expression collapsed.

“You think—”

“No. I don’t know. I can’t…” Cassie released Kate’s hand to scrub at her eyes. “I don’t know,” she repeated.

Kate stood again and did another circuit of the room. No one had turned on the light yet and the sun was setting quickly. It’d be dusk soon, proper dark not long after. Cassie looked over to the window and wondered how long it would take a black dog to smash it in. She sagged.

“Okay,” Cassie said.

“Okay?”

“Okay, we can leave. You’re right, it’s the best option. At least, I think it’ll leave everyone else alone until it gets me.”

Kate paused. Maybe she could smell Cassie lying, but maybe she didn’t care.

“You just stay there,” Kate said after a moment. “I can pack. There anything you want to make sure we bring?”

“Um.” Cassie shook her head. “Just my medication and some clothes and…” Cassie hesitated. “There’s a green shoebox in the closet. Bring that.”

Kate nodded then crossed the living room and wrapped her arms around Cassie’s shoulders. Cassie pressed her face into Kate’s midsection and very nearly cried then and there. Instead she pulled away after a moment and tried a crooked half smile on Kate. Kate did not manage a smile back.

***

They took fifteen minutes to pack and half an hour to leave the county. Cassie had expected the black dog to attack them before they could get to that point, but their drive remained peaceful. Kate kept them on large, busy highways thick with red taillights before them, white headlights to their left. The light swept over Kate in steady patterns, picking out straggling blond hair, a thin mouth. Cassie kept touching at the silver knife attached to her belt, the knife that Kate had pressed into her hand before they pulled out of the apartment complex.

“Keep it on you the whole time,” Kate had said.

“Where did you get this?” Cassie had asked, staring at the simple sheath and wooden handle.

“It doesn’t matter, just keep it.”

“Will you be able to drive tonight?” Cassie asked now. Night hadn’t fallen properly yet; the sky still ran red, pink, and purple from sunset. Kate’s head twitched toward Cassie, and Cassie wondered if she’d been too blunt.

“I have some control over myself,” Kate said after a moment. “I think I can keep this cycle to fangs and claws.”

“And hope we don’t get pulled over,” Cassie said. Kate snorted weakly.

“I don’t know, though,” Kate continued. “This happened at the worst possible time of month.” She passed a truck in silence. “If I feel like I’m in trouble, I’ll pull over and leave the car. You lock it behind me and don’t let me back in unless I’m talking like a human. And keep that knife—”

“Yeah,” Cassie said. “I know.”

Kate’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I’m sorry you have to…I mean, between a werewolf and a black dog. This is shitty. You don’t deserve this.”

Cassie watched the white lines of the highway flick past. “People don’t deserve a lot of things that happen to them. My dad didn’t deserve to die. Those people didn’t deserve to get ripped apart. You didn’t deserve to get bitten.”

Kate exhaled hard, but didn’t say anything else.

They drove for nearly an hour, and the sky deepened into proper night. When they passed a sign telling them that Chicago was another several hundred miles away, Kate broke the silence in a strained voice.

“Can we talk?” she asked. Her voice sounded too deep.

“What?”

“I need to talk. Do something.”

Cassie squinted, then realized that Kate’s fingernails had already lengthened.

“I—yeah.” Cassie shifted in her seat and, almost unconsciously, slid her fingers over the smooth wood of the silver knife. “Okay. Um, tell me about the worst gift you ever got.”

“Uh.” Kate half smiled at the road, even though it came out strained. “Oh, once this guy I was dating in high school got me a bouquet of light-up flowers you could plug in. Super cheap, ugliest things you’ve ever seen.”

Cassie grinned. “What color?” she asked.

“Dehydrated pee.”

Cassie snorted.

“Your turn,” Kate said.

They kept it up for another ten miles, the anecdotes getting longer and longer. Kate’s claws crept into view and her fangs made her speech pattern stilted, but Cassie ignored those things.

“ _Best_ date?” Cassie rolled her head and looked at the ceiling in consideration. “Okay, so I’ve been on two really memorable ones.”

“Talk about both,” Kate said.

“So one was—” Cassie cut herself off and straightened.

“Was what?” Kate prompted.

“I, um.” Cassie swallowed past a throat full of cotton. She’d just seen—but no. It wouldn’t be here. She settled back in her chair and said deliberately, “Dean Winchester.”

The sound from Kate made Cassie jump before she recognized it as a laugh.

“You’re _shitting_ me,” Kate said, looking completely torn between delighted and horrified. “You and pretty boy?”

“Me and pretty boy,” Cassie agreed. She could feel her heart rate coming back under control. “When did you meet him? About a year ago?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I don’t know what he looks like now—”

“Like a Ken doll…underwear model…with eyelashes,” Kate said thoughtfully. She coughed abruptly.

“So imagine that, but about ten years younger.”

“Oof,” Kate shook her head. “You ate that boy alive, didn’t you?”

“I mean, sometimes,” Cassie shrugged, then laughed at the way Kate grinned at her. “You perv, stop imagining it. Anyway. He was good at dates once he got up the nerve to ask me out like a civilized human being. The first time we went out, he took me to this diner in the next town over with the best burgers you’ve ever had. Then we just…I dunno, just drove around with good music and the windows open and whenever we felt like it we pulled over and star gazed and talked a lot.”

“And made out.”

“And made out,” Cassie allowed. “It sounds sort of silly when I describe it now, but I still remember that date. It was good. We were good together.”

“How long did it last?” Kate asked.

“Ugh. A few months?” Cassie grimaced. “See, when we met I had no idea what his work was. Then he told me and I, um. I ditched him. Thought he was trying to leave.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Then a few years later we started getting some really weird murders in my hometown. No logical explanation, no clear evidence. I had no idea where to go, so I called Dean just in case he’d been right and ghosts turned out to be real.”

“And were they?”

“Too real.” Cassie licked her lips. “It killed my dad.”

Several beats of silence.

“I’m sorry,” Kate said.

“It was a long time ago,” Cassie said. “But thanks.” She shrugged and traced the seam of her jeans. “Anyway, Dean and Sam left after that. I haven’t seen them since.”

“Well, they’re alive and whole,” Kate shrugged. “Sam is stupidly tall and Dean has eyelashes. So there’s that.”

Cassie laughed slightly. She watched a mile marker sign pass and realized they were edging out of Iowa.

“What was the second date?” Kate asked.

“With the guy I dated for three years,” Cassie said. She kept her eyes on the road. “Adrian. He had this romantic streak and on our one year anniversary set up a scavenger hunt across town, in all the places that were important to us.”

“Cute.”

“It was.” Cassie took a breath. “That was before things went downhill, so I guess it’s still sort of sentimental.”

“Bastard, was he?”

Cassie hesitated. It was surprisingly difficult to say, “Complete bastard.”

“It’s okay, I had one of those. They’re not worth a shit. Sorry to drag that one out.”

“Nah,” Cassie sighed and leaned back in the seat. “It’s probably good for me to talk about Adrian a little more. I haven’t been able to really talk about him to my mom or friends. They think he was just a jerk. If they knew everything…it’s just better that they don’t.”

“Ever consider a therapist?”

“Maybe.” Cassie looked over and watched the light play over Kate’s fangs, just sticking out from her lips. Strange, Cassie thought, but she felt safer in a car with a werewolf during the full moon than she’d felt with Adrian for most of that last year. “You holding up all right?” Cassie asked.

“I think so,” Kate nodded. “Talking helps, if we can keep doing that.”

“Sure.” Cassie hiked her feet up on the dashboard, thought a moment then said, “Best sex you’ve had.”

Almost immediately, Kate replied, “Amy Millerton, freshman year, in the dorm floor’s study room.”

Cassie looked over, unable to smother a grin. “Why Kate. Do tell,” she said.

“I mean, if you want.” Kate smiled back and almost looked like a college-age girl instead of a half-transformed werewolf.

***

Forty miles into Illinois, the gas tank hovered too close to empty for even Kate’s comfort.

“It’d be in and out of the gas station, wouldn’t it?” Kate asked in a way that sounded half rhetorical. “Bunch of lights and lots of people.” A pause. “I’ll wrap a scarf around my face.”

Cassie didn’t say anything except, “We won’t get that far with the reserve tank.”

Kate grunted and flipped the blinker.

The gas station’s logo was for a company that Cassie didn’t recognize. It flickered dully above them, sending a pale, sick light on them. When Kate pulled the car up, Cassie saw a blue plastic bag tied over the gas nozzle.

“Go to the next one, this one’s out of order,” Cassie said. Kate inched the car forward and found a second blue plastic bag. They did a circuit of the small station. Four blue plastic bags.

“Shit,” Kate said emphatically. “Where’s the next station?”

Cassie looked at Kate, all peaky and washed out from the overhead lights. They shouldn’t have waited so long to gas up. Cassie reached out and clacked open the door.

“I’ll go ask inside,” she said. Kate remained silent and watched as Cassie slid out of the car, stretched aching legs then walked to the convenience store that shone as a piss-yellow counterpart to the livid white outdoor lights.

The woman at the counter gave the tired, limp smile of the overworked when Cassie entered. Cassie flashed a quick smile in return. She went to the shelves and bought several bags of pretzels and chips.

“You guys all out?” Cassie asked as the woman rang her up.

“Yeah, something happened with the shipment today,” the woman said. The bags beneath her eyes neared on purple. Her hair looked like it had been in its ponytail all day. Cassie hoped the women got to go home soon; she looked like she could use it. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.” Cassie eased her wallet from her pocket. “Though do you know where the nearest gas station would be? We’re pretty low.”

“Well, on the highway, you have another fifteen miles or so. Or you can go into town; there’s another station there and they’re stocked.”

Cassie slid across a ten-dollar bill. The counter felt grimy. She looked back out to where Kate waited.

She could feel something crawling in the back of her throat, and it made something in her core quail. The woman picked nickels from the cash register and handed Cassie her receipt, bags of chips, and change.

“How do we get to town?” Cassie asked.

***

Kate didn’t want to leave the highway. Cassie reminded her that they would make it about five more miles before shutting down. Kate called herself a “fucking idiot,” but Cassie wondered whether they had a choice at all, in the end. Maybe some other event would have gotten them in this exact same situation.

“Just go,” Cassie finally said in a strung-out voice. “We’re up against a wall.”

Kate snarled something to the dashboard then changed the car’s gears so violently that Cassie had to remind her that this car was, in fact, Cassie’s.

The lights of the highway and useless gas station disappeared behind them within a minute. A sign informed them that ahead lay Anchorage, Illinois, and beyond that the car’s headlights picked out only the fleeting edges of cornfields and mailboxes with reflective stickers that leapt through the gloom like bioluminescent creatures in deep-sea waters. Kate drove at least fifteen over the speed limit, taking curves hard enough to make Cassie press against the car door. Cassie didn’t try to scold her.

After twenty minutes of driving, Cassie realized that she hadn’t seen a mailbox in a while.

“The girl said it was a five-minute drive,” she said.

Kate remained stone silent. Cassie leaned forward.

“Kate?” she ventured. The car picked up another surge of speed. “Kate,” Cassie repeated. Kate was a dark shadow; the shadow shifted and made a low noise. Cassie’s hands dug into the edge of her seat. “Kate,” she said a third time. “You okay?”

“Might need to pull over,” said a voice that sounded like Kate’s put through a grinder. Cassie flicked on the flashlight on her phone and pointed it at Kate. Cassie did not drop her phone, but she did take a sharp inhale.

“It’s fine,” Kate said. Her speech came garbled around the fully fledged fangs. “But if we stop—” Kate cut herself off with something that could have been a cough, but could also have been a growl.

“We’re miles and miles away,” Cassie said in a low voice. Her free hand found the silver knife handle and gripped so hard her knuckles ached.

“You said that didn’t matter.” Kate made another growling sound. “Hell,” she rasped before she slammed on the brake, practically throwing the car into the curb. Almost before the car had come to a halt, Kate threw open the door and tumbled out. Cassie reached out and slammed and locked the door shut behind her.

Only shaking a little, Cassie scooted across to the driver’s seat and squinted out at the hunched form. Despite the thick cloud cover, the moon gave enough light for Cassie to see how Kate heaved and bucked. It was the oddest sensation to want to go out and comfort her while also keeping a death grip on the silver knife.

When Kate straightened, she did so slowly and with more fluidity than Cassie usually saw. She turned, and Kate’s eyes were the wrong color. She looked like she had that first night, crouched over a deer in the leaf litter. Feral and deadly. Cassie watched as Kate shambled to the car and rested her forehead against the glass. Her shoulders heaved and the window clouded with her breath. Cassie stared through the glass; Kate blinked heavily back. She smiled slightly. Cassie nodded and retreated back into her seat.

In that second, something rocked the car and Kate disappeared from view. Cassie exploded with an aborted scream, yanking the knife from its sheath without thinking. Cassie half stood and scanned the dimness surrounding the car; nothing disturbed it. Cassie rammed the knife back into its sheath and scrambled to the back seat where they had placed the bag of rock salt. She tore the bag open and scattered the contents indiscriminately across the car. The sharp smell accosted her nose, and she wondered how long she could breathe this in an enclosed space.

Suddenly, the car rocked again, a thick thump coming from the left window. Cassie whipped her head up in time to see Kate’s head of blond hair sink from view. And beyond that, Cassie saw a shadow darker than the night around it.

Cassie didn’t dare move even thought she knew it already saw her. She pulled out the silver knife again, crouched among the scattered salt, and waited.

For nearly a minute, the black dog seemed content to watch and remain unmoving. Kate never rose, and Cassie had to force herself to not think beyond that. The silver knife was slick in her hand; the salt crunched every time she shifted position.

When the black dog finally started moving, it lumbered toward the car in unhurried steps. Cassie automatically pressed herself against the opposite door. The dog stopped at the window, dipping its head to sniff cursorily.

It rammed into the car with one shoulder.

Cassie shrieked when the car tilted dangerously, almost but not quite reaching its tipping point. The dog grunted, and in the space of time between this grunt and its next ram into the car, Cassie collected the presence of mind to throw the door open and roll out, the knife in one hand and the half empty bag of rock salt in the other. Her shoulder rammed into the ground and screamed at her, but she couldn’t afford to pay it any attention. Cassie tripped and ran several yards into a wide empty field as the car flipped behind her. Still refusing to look behind her, at everything that might be waiting there, Cassie sheathed the knife and hauled the bag of salt in two hands. She started shaking the salt in a rough estimate of a circle around her, piling it as thick as she could.

A sudden breeze, cold and smelling of fetid meat, ruffled her hair. Cassie straightened. The black dog stared at her. It stood in a slight crouch, its nose hovering right at the edge of the salt line. It did not growl or snap at Cassie, though it didn’t need to do anything so blatant. Not with the way its eyes had something in them like smoldering coals, its hair tangled and rank, its size like that of a draft horse.

But it didn’t move forward. It hovered there at the salt line and Cassie did the only thing that made sense to her. She yanked the silver knife from its sheath, lifted her arm, and thrust the blade into the black dog’s left eye.

The black dog snarled, jerking its head back so quickly and violently that Cassie lost her grip on the knife blade. She released an agonized groan when her only real weapon escaped her. The dog flailed and snarled and made noises that didn’t sound like they belonged to any creature Cassie knew. She hurriedly bent and piled the salt on even higher. This would be her last stand then, hiding in her circle of salt until it broke and then—

The black dog released an even higher pitched noise, and Cassie looked up to see a smaller shape atop the black dog’s hulking one. Kate immediately dove for the knife still sticking out of the dog’s eye. She grabbed the knife handle, yanked it out, and swiftly wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck and slid the knife into its throat. The black dog released a terrible, bone-rattling growl and shook itself so hard that Kate flew off like so much debris. She slammed into the ground.

Cassie had already begun moving before she could stop herself. She bent down, scooped up the bag of rock salt, and drove herself toward the black dog. When she was close enough, she tossed the bag into the dog’s face. It shrieked and stumbled back, one of its clawed paws whistling through the air. Cassie dived to the side, but not before a searing pain tore through her abdomen and arm. Cassie hit the ground and felt the breath knock right out of her.

The dog reared above her, a black shape sans stars, resembling something out of a nightmare. Cassie gazed up at it and wished that it didn’t have to end this way, that she’d had a little more time.

Only the final flurry of teeth never came. Cassie shuddered through several breaths and squinted to find the dog squirming and snapping at a quicksilver Kate. She darted in, tore at the creature’s hide, then leapt back to avoid a massive paw or the snap of a jaw. Her snarls were guttural and completely animal.

Kate had been right; she was in some kind of berserker mode. Carefully, Cassie rolled her head to examine her arm and torso.

That was bad.

Cassie closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see.

Other things were happening beyond the bastion of her closed eyes, but Cassie didn’t want to deal with them yet, if ever. She preferred to sit there and quietly bleed and try to avoid the blades of pain. They were getting better, in fact. Duller and less annoying and—

Something thudded nearby. Cassie unscrewed her eyes and stared at the black dog’s huge muzzle, just a bare foot away from her. It squirmed and made a sick, squelching whine. Kate was nowhere in sight. Cassie let her gaze drift until it found the wooden handle of the silver knife, small and barely noticeable, embedded in the dog’s neck.

The dog saw her, gave one last, ripping gurgle, and fell still.

Cassie closed her eyes again.

***

“Cassie?”

Cassie knew that voice. From somewhere. Hard to think these days. Her arm looked horrible.

“Cassie!”

A sharp jerk, and Cassie managed to peel her eyes open enough to see something that largely resembled a girl, except a girl with fangs and odd ears and sharp nails that caught the full moon. It ought to have been horrifying.

“Hm,” Cassie sighed, choosing to accept this oddity. She closed her eyes again. The girl snarled something, but by then Cassie had taken her leave.

***

Waking up resembled a long swim to the surface when one’s oxygen was running out. It was dangerous and scary, more than a little painful, but Cassie did manage it eventually.

The doctors made it clear that she was lucky to be alive. The bear had missed a few key nerves, so her arm would remain intact, attached to her, and even workable with a few months of therapy. Cassie nodded her way through these explanations, through the lists of questions from nurses and police officers and then park rangers and finally a therapist and an insurance agent. No, she hadn’t seen what had attacked her. Yes, it had been large and hairy. No, she had no idea how she survived. Yes, she had insurance. Blue Cross Blue Shield, ma’am.

At the tail end of these discussions, when Cassie could speak for herself, she asked how she had gotten to the hospital. A phone call, they all told her. Female, the insurance lady was able to tell her. Gone when the paramedics arrived, but wasn’t it lucky that someone had been able to call?

Yes, Cassie agreed. Lucky was one word for it.

***

Kate arrived two days later and reeking of smoke.

She was waiting beside the hospital bed when Cassie woke up. Kate had her forearms braced on her thighs, hands clasped, dead-eyed gaze on a spot at the foot of the bed. Cassie blinked, taking in the sight before she spoke.

“Where were you?”

Kate’s head snapped up, and Cassie realized with a quickening of her heart rate that Kate’s eyes were damp.

“Oh lord,” Kate breathed, then stood and wrapped her arms around Cassie. Cassie inhaled the smoky scent and didn’t manage to keep back the small sound of sheer relief and pain and exhaustion. They remained like that for a long time, Kate rocking ever so slightly and her breathing coming out in shorter and shorter bursts. Finally Cassie tugged away and told Kate not to hyperventilate.

“My lungs are all clogged up,” Kate mumbled, wiping at her eyes with a sooty hand. “It’s fine.”

“What—were you burning the body?” Cassie asked.

“I had to, didn’t I? Salt and burn, and hopefully it can’t come back. That’d be just the kind of thing for it to do, to come back when we killed it fair and square.”

Cassie smiled slightly. “Pretty sure you killed it and I got myself knocked out.”

“Nah, you got that knife in its eye and messed it up with the rock salt. I couldn’t have done jack shit without that.”

Cassie’s grin dropped. “Oh, geeze, are you hurt, though? You got knocked out and—”

“Supernatural healing,” Kate said with a small shrug. “It’s a perk.”

“Still, you shouldn’t have risked yourself and I don’t know how I can repay—”

“No, stop. I don’t deserve—I couldn’t stop this.” Kate gestured to the bandage across Cassie’s torso, the cast on her arm.

Cassie frowned. “You saved my life.”

“Yeah, but not—” Kate huffed and scrubbed at her face. “It’s like,” she said haltingly. “I couldn’t protect my boyfriend from what happened to him. I couldn’t protect Tasha. Maybe I thought I could finally get it right.” Kate bit her lip. “Maybe this time I’d be able to protect you. And I mean, you’re alive, but you’re all torn up—”

“Yeah, and torn up is much preferable to dead,” Cassie interrupted.

Cassie watched Kate duck her head and pick at a hole in her jeans. Cassie could feel herself flushing, and she was momentarily glad that her skin was dark enough not to make it obvious.

“Why?” Cassie asked. It hit her in that moment that, perhaps, this had been what had bothered her most about this blond werewolf squirming her way into Cassie’s life. There had yet to be a clear explanation for all of it.

Kate shrugged again. She blinked at the curtain surrounding the bed. “I like you,” she said.

“Yeah, but why?”

“Because you didn’t back down in the beginning. You’re fearless. You’re smart. And then at the same time you let me sleep on your couch when you knew I wasn’t human, so you’re also insanely, dangerously generous.”

“So I get my life saved because I let you couch surf?”

Kate gave her a sideways look; Cassie laughed, then had to cut herself off.

“Ow,” Cassie croaked.

“We’re going to stop talking now,” Kate said, tugging at the blanket again. “Go back to sleep.”

Cassie sighed. “’Kay.” She thought a moment. “Kate?”

“Hm?”

“Y’know, I’m going to need some help when I get out of here. I don’t think I can drive or, I dunno, run a vacuum cleaner.”

“I can run a vacuum,” Kate allowed. She looked this side of hesitant. “So, what’s your point?”

“Just that you should probably stick around for a while, if you want,” Cassie said. She could feel something warm in her chest, especially when Kate’s mouth tilted up like that.

Kate stood, then leaned over and lowered her face to Cassie’s. She paused at the last second, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. Cassie surged up as far as she could manage, and Kate met her the rest of the way.

Cassie had never kissed a girl before, but she decided that she liked this one. Softer and smaller than Adrian, Dean, or Jason, but backed by something stronger than any of those people. Above her, Kate hovered somewhere between hesitant and, Cassie could tell, eager to dive deeper. Probably worried about Cassie’s injuries and her own abilities. It was fine, though; they had time to work out the details.

Cassie sank back into her pillow when they parted. Kate tucked a strand of hair behind Cassie’s ear, and the tenderness of the gesture seemed blindingly absurd all of a sudden.

“You’re like, ten years younger than me though,” Cassie blurted. “I’m a cradle robber.”

“Please, I’m an adult,” Kate rolled her eyes. “There have been bigger age gaps. Frankly, I’d be more worried about the fact that I’m not even human.”

Cassie coughed out another laugh. “You’re right. The neighbors will be scandalized.”

Kate grinned and leaned down to press her lips against Cassie’s forehead. It was the sort of thing that Adrian used to do all the time. But this was not Adrian; this was the opposite of him. Maybe, Cassie thought in a small burst, this could be okay. Maybe a college-age, blond werewolf who had already saved her life once wasn’t actually the most unthinkable future.

“But you’ll stay?” Cassie asked, suddenly needing to know for sure, needing to know whether she dared let herself look forward to this.

Kate’s expression softened.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’ll stay.”


End file.
